”One Crazy Summer” by Rita Williams-Garcia

Rita Williams-Garcia’s 2010 novel about the Black Panthers is a middle-grade masterpiece. The book follows three black sisters (Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern) as they visit their estranged mother in Oakland in 1968. Upon arriving in California, the girls learn their mother is a poet and a member of the Black Panther Party. In our episode, we discuss what makes this book so brilliant and how, by focusing on the Black Panthers, it fills a gaping hole in children’s literature. We also bust some myths about the Black Panthers and explore how this book serves as an antidote to sanitized and inaccurate stories of the Civil Rights Movement. 

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